Certain cuts have certain connotations for me. Whenever I think of Porterhouses I think of Fiorentinas in Italy; whenever I think of London Broil I think of Saturday nights with my wife back when we were dating. And whenever I think of leg of lamb I think of back when I was a Viking, sailing the heaving North sea with nothing but a flagon of mead and an haunch of rarest mutton to stave off the biting cold. That last part didn’t entirely happen, but the fact remains that cooking and eating a leg of lamb conjures up something primal. There’s no mistaking that you’re eating a part of a once-living creature when you can see a recognizable part of it’s anatomy right in front of you.

Let me set the scene for you, it’s a balmy summer night and the lass you’ve had your eye on is coming over for a homemade dinner. The grill is the obvious choice in this case, but clearly hamburgers just won’t do - this is a girl for whom the concept of a romantic dinner involving your old Weber isn't an instant turn off - you’ve really got no choice but to bust out the king of steaks: the Porterhouse.

It seems like spring is finally arriving to my sleepy corner of PA. The birds are chirping, flowers are blooming, and most crucially - my beloved Weber has finally reappeared from the snowbank it spent the last 5 months hiding inside. It’s reemergence has put grilling firmly in my mind and at this point I’ve been thinking about firing up the grill so much I can practically smell the charcoal. What’s great about the grill is that it’s a great way to cook just about any cut of meat you can think of. There are certain cuts, though, that just cry out to be grilled; they are so well suited for the insanely hot, dry sear you get from charcoal that it’s almost a shame not to grill them. For me, almost no steak grills up better than the Flat Iron.

A couple weeks back we explored the “nose” portion of the nose-to-tail equation, this week we’re dealing with the business end. Oxtail is a forgotten cut of meat that is too often lumped into the same category as offal. That’s a real shame because unlike the soft organ tissue of offal -which can admittedly be a bit of an acquired taste for an unfamiliar cook - oxtail is muscle and bone, just like everyone’s beloved ribeye. Okay, so it’s probably a bit of a stretch to compare oxtail to ribeye, but cooked properly an oxtail on it’s own can be a delicious hearty meal for a cold winter’s day, or it can provide a great base for soups and stews.

So what’s up with the name? Traditionally oxen are any bovines trained as a draft animal, although eventually the term has come to refer solely to castrated males over the age of 4. Agrarian societies have used oxen since 4000 BC to plow fields and pull heavy loads because they’re extremely docile, incredibly strong, and easy to work with; not at all like horses - those flashy troublemakers. The benefit of working with oxen is once they’ve outlived their long operational usage - up to 15 years in some cases - they can be a great source of delicious meat. What does all this have to do with oxtail? Nothing at all. These days you’d be hard pressed to find an ox on any farm in a developed country, I’ve personally never even seen one. At some point though the term oxtail began to be applied to the tail from any beef animal; male, female, castrated, uncastrated - I’ve even seen something labelled “veal oxtail” which makes literally no sense.

Tail still attached the hindquarter. This gives a good idea just how long these guys actually are.

A cow’s tail is constantly in motion and incredibly strong. A farmer I once worked for had a new pair of sunglasses smashed against his face after he got a little too close to the back end of a steer. At the risk of getting too in depth here, think about a cow’s deficiencies in the wiping department, and the prevalence of flies on a farm - you’d have a pretty well-worked tail in that situation too. For this reason, the tail is packed with short dense muscle fibers and tons of collagen. Couple that with a pretty high bone to meat ratio and it soon becomes clear that a grilling cut this is not. An oxtail, much like a shank, needs a long, slow cook in a liquid to properly hydrolyze the collagen into gelatin, and to break apart the muscle into soft palatable fibers. When I lived in Crown Heights one of my favorite take out dishes was curried oxtail from Gloria’s; they started cooking the curry first thing in the morning, and by the time they served it later that night it was so incredibly tender the meat would melt in your mouth.

Getting an oxtail from your butcher should be fairly straight forward. Unlike actual offal, the tail freezes well, so at the very least you should be able to grab one from the freezer. The tails themselves can be over 2 feet long, tapering from a thick 2-3 inches at the base of the tail (the sacro-coccygeal junction for you bovine anatomy nerds) to just a half inch diameter or so at the tip. Clearly that’s not going to fit into a standard dutch oven, let alone all the looks you’d get with the tip poking out of your shopping bag; that’s why most butchers relish the opportunity that oxtail presents to bust out the rarely-used cleaver and chop the tail into sections. A shockingly obscure fact is that a reasonably sharp knife will cut between the vertebrae like butter; no hacking needed, just a little precision. If you ever come across an oxtail left whole, I strongly recommend bringing it home as is and separating out the vertebrae yourself - it’s an incredibly satisfying project. Just trim off excess fat and examine the tail for white seams marking the splits between bones; press your knife straight down through those and you’ll be braising in no time.

Interesting fact: The diameter of the vertebrae will differ, but they're always the same length.

1. Brown the oxtail (preferably in tallow) in a heavy, oven proof pan, then remove and sweat the carrots, onion, garlic, and celery until soft.

2. Add the beer and use a spoon to scrape all the delicious caramelized bits off the bottom of the pan.

3. Add the oxtail back in, along with the thyme, bay leaves, and beef stock and simmer gently for 3 hours, or until the meat is fork tender.

4. Once the meat is done take it out of the liquid and remove the meat from the bones. It should be very easy at this point, but if it gives you any trouble a little more time simmering will change that.

5. Drain the cooking liquid through a fine strainer and reduce over medium heat until it thickens slightly. Add salt and pepper to taste and serve over the now boneless meat. Goes great with delicious dumplings or sourdough toast.

I’m the kind of guy who has lots of favorites; favorite color (green), favorite professional cyclist (Nairo Quintana), favorite foreign currency (Swedish Krona). But the concept of having a favorite steak always seemed to elude me - I can be steadfast in my preference for almost anything else, but downright mercurial when it comes to the question of which particular slab of meat I prefer to throw on my grill. At any given time I might say my favorite steak is hanger, or maybe a top round London broil, or maybe a porterhouse - thick cut Fiorentina style. But if the real proof comes from observing which particular cut I cook most often, there is one clear winner of the “Bill’s favorite steak” contest: Bavette.

Bavette, meaning ‘bib’ is the French word for a cut which is (unfortunately) known in english as “flap meat.” Either name works as a pretty accurate description of the cut, which is somewhat semi-circular, and tapers slightly to a thin tip. With its coarse, long grains, and tendency to include a decent amount of inner-muscular fat, the Bavette is very similar to that other French bistro favorite: Hanger. However, the Bavette has Hanger beat on yield; where one steer might have just a pound and a half of Hanger, a full Bavette can weigh up to 3 and a half pounds, and you’ll get two per steer.

Coming from the belly of the beast, as it were, this cut is attached to a flap of meat and fat connected to the loin - the loin being where you get all the good stuff like NY Strips, Tenderloins, and T-Bones. The loin reaches from the back, where you get your Strips, all the way underneath to the belly, where the Bavette is located, along with the carne asada favorite Flank steak. Back in the day butchers occasionally cut T-Bones and Porterhouse steaks with this long flap still attached. Their aim was to add a few ounces on the scale, but many people recognized this interesting and flavorful muscle as a standout all its own.

Bavette pre-cleaning. The fat surrounding the muscle makes it a tough cut to remove from the muscles around it.

Bavette, sadly, winds up in grind too often. But a good butcher should be able to seam out this muscle for you if you ask; and a really great one will already have it in the case waiting for you. Have them hit it a few times with a Jaccard tenderizer before packing it up. This type of tenderizer, which looks like a medieval torture device, uses a set of small blades to separate grains, which tenderizes the meat without smashing it into pieces the way a traditional tenderizing mallet would.

The Jaccard Tenderizer cuts between muscle fibers rather than smashing them. It both tenderizes and increases surface area for marinades to take hold.

Cooking a Bavette steak may seem a bit trickier than it actually is; to be delicious, this cut just needs fast, dry heat. It’s amazing on a grill, but this time of year you can be forgiven if you forgo lighting charcoal in the Arctic vortex. To cook on the stove, bring the meat up to room temp and then sear on a ripping hot cast iron, 2-3 minutes a side will give you a nice crust and after resting will yield a nice rare/mid rare depending on the thickness. If you need it a little more cooked, just bang it in the oven for 5 minutes at 350. Don’t forget a nice nugget of butter on top while it rests.

Bavette steak has a coarse grain structure which lends a bit of toothsome chew to the cut. For this reason many chefs will marinate it before cooking, which will help to further tenderize the meat, while also adding flavor. Toasted Cumin and Garlic Marinade(adapted from a recipe by Roy Choi)